Araminta places this incident at the time of an earlier Jacobite uprising than the one led by Charles Edward Stuart. She wants to ask about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s time in the capital but she mustn’t show her cards. The party passes through three more gates, each one guarded. There’s a surprising number of stone buildings inside the fortification. Unlike churches, Araminta is not conversant with the architectural requirements of medieval castles. She recalls something about a motte and a bailey and the Norman invasion but she suspects this fortification predates King Harold, and again, she chides herself, she’s in a different country. King Harold never ruled the Scots.
Eleanor keeps her eyes on her feet, glancing only now and then at the soldiers as they fetch horses from the carthouses and hoist coiled ropes on their shoulders. Up the hill, the lieutenant ushers the women towards the thick, low door of a double-fronted stone building. ‘This is the Governor’s House,’ he says. ‘And the officers’ mess.’ A fire is burning in the grate of the reception hallway. The lieutenant takes Araminta’s cape and Eleanor’s coat, both sodden; also the umbrella. A drop of water runs down the maid’s nose and she brushes it off. ‘Wet today,’ the lieutenant comments.
‘I couldn’t get the Hanway to open,’ Eleanor admits.
The women proceed up a set of stairs and into a long room furnished with regimental regalia and lit by two oil lamps on a substantial oak table. The colonel, sitting beside the fire, stands to greet them. ‘Mrs Moore!’ he exclaims, ignoring Eleanor, who, after all, is only the maid. ‘Welcome to Edinburgh Castle!’ He bows in the European fashion.
‘It’s a shame it’s such a cloudy day,’ Araminta says. ‘I’d have liked to take in the view you described when we were on board.’
‘Terrible weather. Scotland,’ the colonel replies, as if it never rains anywhere else. ‘But here you are.’
‘Thank you. Yes.’
‘These medieval buildings have thick walls, I’ll give them that. And these ancient fireplaces’ – he gestures – ‘excellent for heat.’
‘Is the whole castle medieval?’ Araminta enquires politely.
‘It’s been added to and subtracted from over the centuries,’ the colonel starts, somewhat woolly on the details. ‘It’s said one of the medieval kings kept lions, in a pit here.’
‘And the chapel? Has it ever changed?’
He nods in a non-committal fashion, for he doesn’t want to say he isn’t sure. ‘Castles always have a chapel, Mrs Moore. The night before the battle in medieval days was considered a time of vigil.’ He pours two pewter tankards of brandy and, with a flourish, scalds the liquid with a thin poker that’s been heating in the fire. ‘To warm you,’ he explains, looking pleased with himself as she wraps her fingers round it.
Araminta walks over to a small window cut into the thick stone, with a view back down the hill. ‘It’s like its own village, isn’t it?’
‘We’re self-sufficient,’ the colonel agrees, ‘though these days we don’t keep livestock, apart from bantams for eggs. There’s a well, though, and copious storerooms. We’d last a year were we put to siege.’
‘That’s unlikely, isn’t it?’ Araminta says.
The colonel laughs. ‘You need not concern yourself, ma’am.’
‘So where’s the chapel?’ She gestures through the thick, uneven glass.
The colonel joins her at the pane, misted now by condensation. ‘Further up the hill, next to the Constable’s Tower.’ He points. ‘You can just make it out at the top of that wall. See – the ornamental crosses.’ Araminta recalls what Winifred said about a cross being a target. The colonel turns back into the room. ‘It’snot the best day for a tour, but once you’ve warmed up, why don’t I show you?’
She smiles. ‘So kind.’
Eleanor can feel the warmth of the fire from where she is standing. Mrs Moore doesn’t generally take much interest in churches. She might sit on the ladies’ committee of St Mary Magdelene but her mistress is not the type to undertake brass rubbings or the inspection of a spire. Last summer when the Moores visited friends in the village of Kensington they attended Sunday service, but Mrs Moore showed no inclination to visit the array of pretty churches nearby, though she stopped the carriage to see the workings at the gravel pits. There’s something here, Eleanor thinks, that’s piqued the interest of the gentlemen. She shudders as if one of the clouds overhead has passed through her. Last night she dreamt she was lost in a copse of trees so thick that she could scarcely walk without bumping into them. In the early hours she woke with a start and, panicking, checked her arms for bruises. She’s determined to get away still, but until it’s time to do so, she must tell the gentlemen as little as she can. She might admit to coming to the castle, but will not convey the unlikely nature of her mistress’s interest in the religious life of the regiment.
The lieutenant returns with the women’s outerwear which has been comprehensively dried. Eleanor helps Araminta with her cape before pulling on her own coat and scarf, still warm from the stove. The lieutenant whispers, with a shy smile, that he has fixed the Hanway. ‘The brass spring needed oiling.’ As they venture into the cold he opens the umbrella and holds it over Mrs Moore, and they walk up the hill. ‘It feels as if the rain will never stop, doesn’t it?’ the colonel remarks.
Inside, the church is exactly as might be expected: a line of pews, a pile of hymnals and an altar with a cross. It smells like all churches, of book bindings and Sunday mornings. Aramintacarefully takes this in, running her eyes along the edges of the ceiling and round the window frames. Examining the floor.
‘Where does that go?’ she asks, motioning to a low, oak-framed entranceway above a run of steps.
The colonel helpfully opens the door.
‘It’s a storehouse,’ he says, his beefy fingers still on the handle. ‘The Major Gunners’ responsibility... for ordnance.’ He shrugs to dismiss it, but Araminta understands immediately the store is a remnant of some older arrangement of the building.
‘How interesting,’ she pronounces. She knows how stone is cut, or rather, how it was cut. The regimental chapel is, by her reckoning, a century old and mostly constructed of wood, but the storeroom is considerably more antiquated, as if it was hewn from Castle Rock itself. The windows are thin slits, left unshuttered to admit the light. Only a fool would want to bring a candle into a storeroom full of artillery. As well as wooden boxes on the uneven floor there are four ancient glass panes, propped against the wall. Above, the stone ceiling has been altered but once, clearly, was vaulted.
‘May I?’ she asks.
‘Please,’ the colonel encourages her.
Inside, she realises immediately that this was a chapel. A tiny jewel at the heart of the castle. The room is oriented east to west, a kind of confirmation. No more than twenty people could have worshipped here – surely the most important residents of the city’s most important fortification: Scotland’s medieval royals. The family her ancestors served. Araminta’s heart beats faster as she wonders if Mary Queen of Scots prayed in this place. She breathes deeply to steady her mind as her eyes bounce off the walls and floor, searching for the clue that Winifred said would be apparent.
‘Perhaps I ought to show you to the strongroom,’ the colonel says through the open doorway. ‘We keep the Honours of Scotland there. The crown. That sort of thing.’
